AND LOWER EGYPT. 357 



a man of such importance, I gave him payment 

 Tor his seal a little above its value. 



In the market-place there is a long black stone 

 loaded with hieroglyphics. A man of Aboukir 

 perceiving that 1 considered every fragment of an- 

 tiquity with attention, and that I sought to disco- 

 ver them, came to offer me a statue which he said 

 was very beautiful, but partly buried. I sent one 

 of my attendants with this man, who could not 

 find his statue again. However, that he might 

 not altogether lose his time, and the profits he 

 hoped to receive, he set himself to removing the 

 earth, and in a moment he discovered a very fine 

 marble monument loaded with hieroglyphics ; he 

 came immediately to inform us of it ; we went to 

 the place, and I saw a little pyramid in perfect 

 preservation o( the most beautiful black marble, 

 and covered along each side of its base with a 

 fillet of hieroglyphics equally well preserved. I 

 bought it of a man to whom it belonged as little 

 as it did to me, and I gave it in charge to the Jew 

 drogman, to send it to me at Rossetta by the first 

 germe which departed from Aboukir. We may 

 form an estimate of the riches of this mine of anti- 

 quities, covered only by a slight bed of earth and 

 rubbish, since a man, in less than half an hour, 

 And without any implement but his hands, with 



a a 3 which 



